all the birds, the trees, the falling snow
by flesh and bone telephone
Summary: He sees the way Klaus's eyes fall on the hair curled at the nape of her neck, because Stefan's been watching it too. — Stefan, Caroline, and how she can't give him up.


**disclaimer:** i don't own tvd, and i really wish i didn't own whatever i just wrote.  
**dedication:** to the steroline fans who probably had great expectations when they saw this fic pop up and ended up inevitably disappointed by the end of it, because i honest to god did not know what the hell i was writing when i first began.  
**warning:** this is probably one of the crappiest things i've ever written, and as always i obviously mixed up my tenses a lot, please forgive me!  
**notes:** ugh, screw this shit. seeing it on my hard drive pisses me off. this is my hardest FAIL.  
**even moar notes:** so, my good writing streak ends at the hands of being too in love with a pairing i couldn't even write properly.

* * *

.

.

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_I'd like to let you know that I do not feel welcome.  
All the birds, the trees, the falling snow,  
No they were not made for me.  
And all this is where her heart resides; we met in California.  
She saw cities, promise reaching through my eyes  
And she turned her self away_

.

.

.

—

* * *

Stefan's always right.

But he's so old, and he always knows what's up and down, her Wise Benji or something, (except he's not hers he's Elena's _remember?_) And Caroline's totally cool with that, because they deserve each other in some pretty dynamic ways and she's not a petty little cheerleader anymore. She loves them both. And anyway, doesn't it make the most perfect sense for the universe to put her two best friends together? Yeah, it's totally preordained. As preordained as Stefan's general outlook on life, because he _always_ knows what to say and do. He's always right. He always _makes_ situations right. He's always going to save her.

So she's given up trying to prove him wrong. Sometimes it gets on her nerves, but most of the time it's good to know there's a well meaning smart ass out there who doesn't mind having her back even with all his 'I told you so' looks. Always saying his wise, worldly things, and advising her like her very own Jimminy Cricket. A little annoying, a little self-righteous with his hero-hair, but _there_ for her – he won't ever lead her astray.

Except maybe it's the other way round this time, because Caroline isn't the one having an identity crisis, and she certainly isn't inclined to loosing herself to madness and loneliness. Not when she has eternity on her side, and she has the rest of forever to make the world hers the way Mystic Falls couldn't be. She's Jimminy, and he's the Ripper, and she doesn't think he'll be able to be a 'real boy' by the end of all this. She doesn't know if she's going to be strong enough to save him.

* * *

So what if she ends up zoning out staring a little too deeply into his bright eyes during their old hunting meets? It's all just left over appreciation for his physical attributes. Her mind can't help appreciating just how pretty he is, she accepts that as his friend she needs to come to terms with the fact that he's always going to be very attractive. A blind man would see that.

So she doesn't like him _that_ way anymore.

Caroline saves herself the heartache of wanting things she can't have, she's happy enough with what they have right now. She's happy, even if it looks like she's settling. She's happy because he's her friend and he promised he'd be there for her.

That's Stefan, always looking out for me.

Somewhere between her absentee gay father, her can't-stick-around-for-more-than-four-hours mom, being the third wheel in the Elena-Bonnie best friend-dom and her string of boyfriends who inexplicably end up in love with Elena...Well, who knew what she needed was a best friend like Stefan? Fix-me-up Stefan who she's beginning to understand, who understands her better than anyone else probably ever bothered to.

It's more than enough.

* * *

He wasn't supposed to leave.

She knew why, of course, but she also knew (_hoped_) that in the end no matter how twisted black he turned out to be Stefan had always been - and would always be - motivated only by goodness and love. Sometimes there was a little damage, a fall out, but prices are paid because sacrifices are in order, and that's noble. He's noble. He's such a goddamn martyr, it kills her.

Months later, she sees him. He doesn't look like a saint then, not a martyr, not a friend.

He looks like something mean, teeth red as his lips lift, like a wolf fresh from his meal. Caroline's stomach turns when he uses the back of his hand to lazily smear the rest off his mouth, the streak of red that blazes against his ashy skin like a stain. She had come over with the intention of talking some sense into him, to gauge for herself just how far he'd fallen. Her confidence wavers, her glass half-full mentality starts to feel a little silly and mow Caroline doesn't want to walk any further into the Salvatore boarding house, and sticks solidly to the door frame. Her attempts at tries st appearing more unimpressed than terrified are flimsy. Knows she fails when Stefan's look turns into a sneer. "Is this a social call?"

"No," she says instead of running, swallowing and trying an amicable smile. He's an animal, she's heard Elena profess in whispers so small they sent the hair on her skin up in goosebumps, he's not Stefan anymore. Well, she'll take that advice, if she comes in here guns blazing she'll either scare him away or bring about retaliation. This Stefan doesn't look like he has qualms about killing her. "Just answering the cry for help."

Stefan lounges back in his chair, wrists flicking as he taps his fingers on the arms in impatient, expectant tandem. There's an air of barely contained excitement about him, like a child's anxious need to run around making the unruliest of noise. That he's just looking for the thrill of a fight, even as he sits still there isn't anything still about him.

"Oh, really?" He taunts.

Caroline's tongue feels dry, leaden. She's gotta put a brave front on though, she can't show that she'd phased. It's what he wants, he wants to unsettle her. Forbes women are tougher than that, Caroline decides. She makes her spine hard, mouth sets stubbornly and dismisses any remnant of wariness from her tone. She's not afraid. She doesn't scare easy, anymore. "Yeah." She tips up her chin, cocks a brow, and doesn't smile. Like she's seriously looking to drag him to sense the way only Lexi might have known how to, like she has even that power, or is close to any of his regard for the girl to be even taken seriously ever. Figures. She might remind him of Lexi, he'd said so once, she'd heard him, she was sure. but she wasn't a good enough replacement, not effective enough either.

She was never effective enough a replacement or alternative option, even dating Matt he'd still been giving Elena the longing side-eye. Being second option stunk. But Stefan was her best friend, he wouldn't shoot her down like he did at the bush party, he _cared._

"And how," Stefan leans forward, his arms slip slowly, a tiger stretching its limbs. Caroline sticks her ground. He props his elbows on his knees, a hard twist to his mouth, and a look in his eyes that reminds her of being trapped in that cage again, the way they'd locked her up and laughed when they shot her full of vervain and called her monster. He looks like the monster here. "Are you doing it from all the way over there?"

He had her there.

* * *

Damon's entrance saves her the indecency of doing anything stupid after Stefan says that. God, way to call her bluff.

A part of her wanted to stomp over and give him a piece of her mind, to go all hey mister, so here's the fucking situation. Everyone's giving up on you, and you don't have the excuse of saying your under compulsion anymore. And what, ever since botching up killing that British bastard getting you free again you don't even bother with a phone call, a visit, a text message at the very least?

A bigger part of her feels a spark of fear, it tells her to quit it, to go home, to regroup and return with a better strategy.

Damon _feels_ like she's overstayed her welcome.

"You're an exemplary host," she lightens up, unfolding her arms. Hopes the little eye roll she throws in hides the fact that Stefan's strangeness had set her on edge in a way that had all but extinguished all the oxygen in the room for her. The eldest Salvatore cradles a bottle of something obscure and probably illegal, sidles up to her with face screwed up like she's his personal head ache. She scrunches her nose in response. "You smell like a brewery."

"You smell like Original vampire."

Stefan's eyebrows quirk at that, he sits up a little bit.

"Ugh, you heard about that?" Caroline says breezily, because _Damon's_ on top of her life and Stefan doesn't give a damn. Who would've known? "Yeah and uh, thanks for the flowers. It was a nice gesture"

Damon looks annoyed that she even brought it up, and surprised as well considering that he almost murdered her dad that one time. The flowers had been pretty thoughtful. "Uh huh, Blondie. You know what kind of gesture I'd like to make now? This." He points at the door, in that weary assholish way that tells her she's made him_ feel_ stuff, and thus he _feels_ awkward for feeling at all. It's pretty endearing. "Yeah, this is me telling you to _shoo_."

Not one of his most original witty lines, but she still smiles a little all the same. Caroline kinda wants to punch his arm, but they're not exactly _there_ yet either. "Alright, alright. I'm _going._ Call me when Pouty Mc'Broodypants of Solemn Hill over there lightens up."

"Oh, him? He's just cranky because I'm the better kisser."

Stefan's obviously not understanding this conversation. Or the almost fond animosity between them. But Caroline doesn't make any apologies for not explaining the context of this to him, not when he's adamant in excluding himself from their lives. She's going home, will rethink her strategy. She raises her hand and waves at him with a little grin, and lets herself out.

_I know your pride aches to ask, but I can't handle the constipated look on your face right now._ Damon decides, tossing to the silent brooding presence by the fireplace after Caroline leaves. _But Bill Forbes is dead. And I'm pretty sure your boyfriend - who tried to kill her the other day, b-t-w - has fallen deeply, inexplicably in love with the notion of getting into her pants._

_Just sayin'.  
_

* * *

_I might also have made out with your girlfriend, _Damon confesses later that night, looking too pleased with himself to ever sell the idea of him being contrite. Adds insolently, _twice.  
_

He sees the punch coming, doesn't dodge it because Stefan needs to do this. Feeling anger is better than Stefan not feeling anything at all. Which is Damon's gift to the community for the year._  
_

_Hurts like a mother, but, _Damon concludes,_ still totally worth it.  
_

* * *

She doesn't know what she expected. For Stefan to feel sorry? To not brush off her disappointment as easily as he's brushed off Elena's - the girl he loves more than anything in the world? She feels stupid, moving her mug of coffee distractedly across the kitchen table, light on so he knows she's just coincidentally there should he be suddenly struck with actual remorse.

Damon used to make her wait, at his beck and call.

But, Caroline doesn't know. This is Stefan, she was just expecting...more.

She gets up with a sigh, turns off the lights. The floorboards creak, she yawns with the house and its gaping emptiness now that her mom's on yet another late shift. Caroline goes up the stairs, into bed, rolls over and wishes she'd stop trying. She falls into uneasy sleep and doesn't spend another night waiting up for him.

She still hasn't thought of a strategy the next time she sees him. Looking befuddled at the steps of the Mikaelson manor, hands in pockets, head cocked as if listening to the music within. He doesn't have the courtesy to pretend to be at all perturbed by her.

But she doesn't see his scowl, a mean thing that changes the whole of his expression into something that unsettles the Mayor. "Is something wrong?" Carol Lockwood asks, raising a brow at the stiffness of his jaw, looking knowingly over to the pair his brother and Elena Gilbert make. "Oh, you boys and your squabbles. Don't be jealous, Elena deserves to have a little fun once in a while."

Sure, he's jealous. He's always going to despise seeing Elena exchanging looks of longing with his brother, it's a betrayal, and she'll always be the girl he loved above all others. Sure.

But seeing Klaus move Caroline with all the liquidity of a professional predator twists in his gut, makes him want with all parts unease and anger the taste of violence. He doesn't like this man and his affable graces, his amiable smiles that charm and pull and befriend so easily. They'd been fast friends in the 20's, Klaus had been easy going, fun, and it had been brotherhood.

But to see those same weapons in employ, and against a guileless girl like Caroline who gives everyone their undeserved second chance, it eats him up. Hadn't he told Tyler to bite her just the other day? What the hell?

She lets him lead her by the elbow to one of his rooms, Stefan wants Caroline to have a little sense. To just outright say no. Entertaining Klaus's presence is giving him time to weasel in. He sees the way Klaus's eyes fall on the hair curled at the nape of her neck, because Stefan's been watching it too.

Stefan spends the better amount of his time during that night (while Damon's resettling his spine and Elena's digging her hole) _watching_ Caroline and the errant coil of hair beaten white-gold resting against her skin. The fingertips resting lightly on the small of her back, the arm that settles around her waist. The easy way she ignores it all, but doesn't reject it. Klaus is getting to her, Stefan knows, and Stefan won't let him ruin her.

Stefan wants to drag her away, say something mean. She always listens to him, doesn't she?

But he twists instead, grabs Elena's hand instead. Closes her door at the end of the night and tells the doppelganger that he _can't._

_He can't._

* * *

She really wants to believe that he's still the good guy, but he's behaving like such an asshole she doesn't deem him worthy enough to contemplate more than she's supposed to. There's the stinging betrayal under every blank look she throws him, a sort of anger that itches beneath her skin. They don't even talk anymore. He almost drove her best friend off a fucking _bridge._

This wasn't the Stefan she knew.

This was the Stefan before all of them, the Ripper with his bottles of blood. And it's easy to condemn him and just write him off completely like another lost cause, but Caroline can't. Damon was going to kill her that night at the carnival, she'd been a liability, she'd been the hungering lost cause then with the thrill of the kill buzzing low like a separate out of this world frequency right in her blood. Stefan had _saved_ her. Stefan had _seen_ something in her he'd considered worth saving.

He taught her how to be better than that. To rely on her own strength and will power.

This Stefan isn't the same one who knew everything about her enough to tell what she was thinking, at least that Stefan didn't judge her. This one isn't even in a position to do so.

But then again, she's been telling herself being a friend meant accepting all of a person. The good, the bad and the ugly. Stefan's ripper side was something she was supposed to help with, she was supposed to help _him._

She wanted to believe so badly that under that cool exterior beat still the heart of the boy who'd wiped blood from her face with tender care, and made her a promise that he wouldn't let anything happen to her.

Friends didn't turn away.

So guess what? That shit's a two way street. It's Caroline's turn to be there for him, even if he doesn't care enough for her to be.

* * *

You're bait, Stefan more or less decides.

He's obsessed with you, Damon states.

And yeah? We're 99.9% likely to kill your boyfriend, and a 100% certain not to give a shit about it.

* * *

She struggles. Fists beating against his chest, elbows writhing and twisting, and he'll have bruises all over. Blue and purple, fading only in the morning. He wants to shake her hard, tell her to stop being a baby. Say something scathing enough to kill the light in her eyes, and stop the anger dead in her throat. But Stefan's armfuls of Caroline are already difficult enough to keep a hold of let alone control.

It used to be a whole lot easier before.

She had always been such a soppy, teary-eyed drunk. So it's no surprise that tonight he's getting the pointy end of an outburst that's been building up for months.

"Let go of me," she hisses, messily swiping at his chest. It's enough to slice a lesser man open. "Let go of me let go of me _let go of me_!"

Stefan doesn't. His fingers curl around her arms, feels her bones beneath her skin. It feels familiar, he's _done_ this before, it's not the first time he's carried this particular broken girl home. He feels tired of setting his face with stone. But the cold front's easy to give, it's so much easier. He's not allowed to stop.

Everyone's given up. Elena, Damon – the thought of Caroline doing the same sets him on edge. She's supposed to trust him wholeheartedly. Lexi would have pulled him back, she'd have gone to the ends of the earth to pull him back. Caroline would too.

She's so stupid.

She's raving, eyes afire with a mad sort of grief. He's heard what Klaus has said about her, strong, full of light. Stefan thinks that in that moment Caroline is made more of fire than anything. It doesn't make him proud.

He's the ripper, he's the bad guy. She's supposed to be better than this.

He's not supposed to care.

He's no longer under compulsion, but that hadn't changed things. Damon said his attitude still stunk. At least Original's lap-dog Stefan had been obedient-ish, easier to predict and easier to forgive. This Stefan's an _asshole._

Caroline'd gone off and done something he thought she'd promised to leave behind. Gone and been a reckless little thing in the bar with too much to drink, raving and raving, and he'd been in the area.

He'd told her just the same when he attempted to take her home. He wasn't being charitable, he wasn't being a friend. _I'm in the area._

_You don't have to pretend to care about me, Stefan. Not now when you and Elena are over_. Caroline had sniffed at his outstretched arm, eyes haughty. A hardness to her spine even as she spilled whisky over the rim of her cup. _So, you know...I'm sure there's a village somewhere in need of pillaging. If you wouldn't mind._

Stefan hadn't liked the way she'd talked. He'd hurt her, he'd hurt everyone. Everyone hurt him too in response. Elena shunned him with her dalliances with his brother, he pushed down the sting, wouldn't let it touch him. Damon refused to trust him, not that Stefan blamed them. He didn't care.

But he'd expected _more_, to be honest. A little bit more of the obstinate bull headed determination and persistence of people who cared. The persistence perhaps of an air headed blonde who had high maintenance issues when it came to planning all the frivolous little parties their little town had.

Caroline was the only one who wasn't supposed to match him blow-for-blow, she'd regarded him too highly. It left him struck, winded, reeling a little with the reality of the shitfest his life had become.

The most forgiving person he knew was tired of him.

He adjusted, slung her over his shoulder, hefted her up and trapped her knees against his chest as he came up to her porch. She'd always had a fine kick. Her hair falls messily over him, tickles where her cheek presses against his shoulder.

_You're allowed to hate me as much as you damn well like_, he'd said coldly, picking her up bodily and not giving a damn about the way the bartender glared at his in-delicateness.

He steps up her porch, kicks the door open. He feels her hot tears on his shirt, her fists fall now with tired thumps, without strength, feel like kitten paws more than any adversary's. It was a hopeless sort of despair eating her up. Eating at him.

_I don't hate you,_ he realized she kept whimpering furiously, _I don't hate you, I don't hate you, I don't - _And then, _Stefan you douche, you weren't supposed to leave me. You promised me. You promised you wouldn't let anything happen to me. Everyone leaves,_ he shouldered open her bedroom door, her sheets smelled like vanilla and wildflowers, and she was too tired to smack his hand when he began to put her head beneath her pillow. He didn't know why he did it, the action felt too tender for the person he'd become to do, _Tyler left me once, Matt left me, my _dad_ left me. That was okay. I had it coming, I _expected_ it. But not you, never you._

_You're supposed to be my _friend.

He moved down, wished she'd just fall the fuck asleep. Drunk Caroline always pulled some strange strings in him. Stefan slid his palm beneath her heel, pulled off each boot with rough economical force.

You're a _liar._

He flinches. She's turning in her sheets, one thigh bared white as cream, rubbing her face with the back of her hands, her bracelets jangling like wind chimes in his ears and summer nights and – he clamps on that line of thought, steps on it the way he'd put out a cigarette, scowls.

_You _lied_. I know that you don't care if you kill Tyler. You don't care. Why are you allowed to save the people you love? I love him. I wouldn't let anyone kill him, I wouldn't let anyone kill you._

"Shut up," he grits, wishes she'd just _shut up_. "Go to sleep Caroline."

_I wouldn't_, she huffs sleepily, drunken red seeping into her cheeks as she aims a feeble kick at him. Her heel knocking against his thigh.

_I don't hate you_, she mutters, tear tracks running into her pillow as she succumbs despondently onto her side, tired of fighting him. Tired of _him._

_You're a liar. You broke your _promise.

She keeps saying that, his _name._ Stefan Stefan Stefan falling mournfully from her lips, dropping like rosary beads, something to hinge a man's soul on. She'll get no miracles from him, they both know. He's not the kind of savior a girl like Caroline deserves.

Stefan stays, and doesn't really understand why. Leaves only with the breaking of dawn like some shadow, like a thief.

* * *

There's something familiar and warm about her that makes his heart simultaneously swell and break beneath his ribs. Making spider webs fissures in some parts of his mask, and strengthens the parts of others at the same time. His guard goes up way high, but she could knock it down to realise it.

He's terrified that she might not forgive him one of these days.

_One of these days time is going to stop having meaning for her, like it did for you. One of these days she's going to get close to loosing herself to despair. where're you going to be then?_

* * *

Tyler dies. Klaus dies.

Caroline kicks Stefan in the shins when he shows up on her doorstep a week after the funeral (or send off, considering that all Bonnie found of Tyler's body was ashes), but she lets him in anyway. Lets him grab her hand and squeeze until the bones in her wrists grate together painfully. "No," Stefan says, not far from snarling. They both know she'll disappear the moment he lets go, Caroline realizes it far later than he does. "No, no, I came to say something."

She drags him into the kitchen, he won't let go of her.

Caroline's voice is hard, her tongue made from flint."If Elena forced you to come here -"

"She didn't." Stefan sets his jaw stubbornly. The place has changed, there's a drawing he knows suspiciously well hanging by a fridge magnet. He almost gets angry all over again, but he doesn't want to get distracted or derailed. This has been a long time coming. "It's all me, everything, Caroline."

Her hip bumps against the counter, he doesn't let go, he's squished in the narrow place between the counter and that stupid drawing. His shoulder barely fits against the fridge, but he sees the pictures, big bright smiles. Bonnie, Elena, Caroline with arms across each other's shoulders and the watering hole behind them eating up sunlight, grinning young and free.

"It doesn't matter what you want to say," Caroline says, looking down at their hands. "You're hurting me Stefan."

"You don't get to leave."

"You don't decide anything for me, remember?"

"I'm sorry I ever made it seem - Caroline, you're - you're my friend."

"Am I?" She snipes, but it's all hurt rather than any conviction. "I must not have gotten the memo, because these past few months, Stefan? You've been a stranger."

He snatches the drawing off the fridge, because it's been burning into the back of his head for the duration of this conversation. Caroline starts a little, heart jumping to her throat, into her eyes. Her face has always been in constant animation.

For a moment he can't decide between tearing it up or shoving it down the sink's drainage. Caroline's mouth is open, and she looks absolutely astonished, anxious that he be very careful with this stupid thing some murderer - who didn't know half the worth of her heart to be worthy of having her - _gave_ her. Stefan can't bear to see her face crumple, he doesn't want to be the one to do that to her anymore.

He fumbles back somewhere behind him, never once breaking eye contact, pulls one of the drawers haphazardly open and shoves it inside as far as it can go. Shuts it so hard the silverware clatters.

"What the hell, Stefan?"

He doesn't explain himself. "I'm sorry, Caroline. I'm _sorry_."

He lets go of her hand then, she pulls it to her chest, presses it against her pyjama blouse. Where her heart might be, he thinks.

"Don't give up on me," he says tightly, the words barely making it past his throat. His body aches with tension. "Don't give up on me."

Her laugh startles him, and something in her eyes break, cave in and gives up on resisting her own feelings. Because there's light in them. "No one's given up on you, we're all still here."

"No," he decides, "You've always been here. I hurt you, I didn't care, but you...You gotta fix me."

"Why? So you can give Elena a side of you she can accept, and just ignore all the past and shit? You can't _fix_ a person, you're not a machine."

"Save me." He insists, "Caroline, help me."

"I'm not Lexi, Stefan."

"I know."

"And I'm not Elena."

"I know that too. You're Caroline. You can't leave, not like I did."

"I won't. Because I'm Caroline," she agrees, sounding juvenile, like the girl in the photograph. "And you're a hopeless lump," her eyes shine, her smile's like a fragment of something that used to be, it's the kind of smile she only ever reserved for him. "So it'd be unforgivable for me to leave, wouldn't it?"

* * *

Stefan is terrified at the prospect of liberty. Liberty means he's in control of his actions, love means he's in control of how his decisions alter the lives of others, it means being _responsible_ for everything he's ever done and will ever do.

(Killing killing _killing.)_

In freedom lies the realization of all his sins, in love he cannot repair them for they have hurt everyone, hurt them irrevocably (_Not me_, Caroline pipes up in his head, _I'm the bounce-back blonde, remember? Bounce back, Stefan, please please _please_. Give this world a chance._), in being responsible – well, he doesn't think he can cope with doing that. It means acknowledging everything he's ever done. It's the kind of thing that could kill a man's soul.

He's been washing blood off his hands for years. It doesn't come out.

He doesn't want to look at his hands, anymore.

He doesn't want Elena's easy forgiveness, her petulance in refusing to see the whole of him. She thinks the killing's just a phase, that he's strong enough to fight it, some invasion into his system for his antibodies to fight off instead of animal habit.

Until he's fixed then she's all but put him on quarantine with the way she avoids him. Grows tired when she realizes he's stopped fighting, he doesn't want to seek forgiveness anymore, he doesn't want to remember every bad murderous little deed written in the etches of his palms. It'll destroy him.

He stops drinking blood after Wickery bridge. Stefan has a little bit more lucidity after that episode, he wants to want to change, because the thought of Elena not believing in him anymore is as dangerous as the loss of hope. He loves her, he can't lose her. It's better if he stays away. If he's away he can't protect her. These are all the things Caroline says to him. It's this kind of thinking that's just plain stupid, she tells him, she _loves_ you.

He doesn't know any middle ground.

Stefan's a vampire, it's about time he stop feeling sorry for himself and realize it. So maybe Damon has the right of it, _just_ this once. _Stop_ hovering between extremes, blood bags one year, throats ripped open the next. It isn't healthy.

_You can't quit cold turkey_, Damon decided when he bared that pretty girls throat, when he pulls her head back. Says _brother_ in that particularly mocking way of his.

Stefan drinks and drinks and _drinks._

Damon wrestles him away, his grin is beyond unsettling.

Stefan isn't the ripper anymore, he isn't Elena's boyfriend anymore either, being both is dangerous.

_But you're all of them,_ Caroline says, _it's all a part of you. You can't - you can't just be _divided_ into bits, Good Stefan, Bad Stefan, all this _bull_shit. You can't make yourself more palatable for other people by denying your history or pretending all of it just didn't happen, _correc_t it. Be _better_. Not for Elena, not for Damon, not even for me, _she laughs a little, an incredulous little bark hanging on that last little 'me', like she doesn't at all credit herself._ for you._

_Be better for you._

He tosses back his head, sneers, because being an ass has been his default for a while now, says she sounds like a self-help book. Asks if she's been reading The Secret with all the original thoughts floating about in her head.

She goes out and buys it for him the next day.

Stefan doesn't read it, saying he even touches it is even a little of an overstatement, he doesn't even thank her either. But he unwraps it from the loud gift wrapping when he goes into his study, and places it on the edge of his table. He doesn't put it away. It stays there, bright red, with a Caroline smiley face scrawled within.

You can't put someone like Caroline away. She's neurotic, she's crazy, she's persistent.

She keeps coming back, every time. Won't leave him alone.

She's not the worst sort of nuisance.

* * *

One day she eventually does leave, he lets her, says she needs a little time alone. It's healthy for every vampire to do this once in a while, he'd had his years.

Mystic Falls moves and grows and he too leaves that town years later. The years curling around him like autumn leaves, fluttering off his skin without really touching him at all.

When life gets too hard, when the world seems too large, he looks for Caroline. Surprises her in an airport, in Barcelona. Emerges from the crowd at departure, holds up a sign board with her name scrawled on it. Sees her face, her hand curled around a suitcase, she gasps her surprise. Her hair's tied back immaculately, she looks completely worry-free in the airport full of hassled tourists and commuters. He sees her immediately.

She drops what she's holding and flings herself into her arms, laughter on her tongue, in her face, in her eyes. Stefan's filled with armfuls of Caroline again, armfuls of light, and sometimes being alive doesn't hurt so much.

* * *

—

.

.

.

_So I followed her here to Birmingham, where the soil is so much richer,  
And though my aching pride might guide my hand, she did not ask for me to come.  
So I wait for her all through the day, as if I wait for her surrender.  
And every time I get her to look my way, she says I'm not where I belong.  
_

.

.

.

* * *

**end notes:** so yeah. please tell me you hated this as much as i did. i also hate 'the secret', book was a waste of my time. the lyrics don't even go with the fic. idek. there is no justification for bad writing, there just isn't. i'm so sorry, ugh. steroline looks so fabulous in my head but it just doesn't translate on my paper. blegh.


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